177. Olaf Scholz: Putin, Power, and Far-Right Populism
23 February 2026
The trawlers can’t run away from the seagulls
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Post
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7 September 2010
Many many thanks to those who applied the term 'Cantonesque' to my phonehacking tweet yesterday. This is praise indeed in our household, though in this case undeserved.
To recap, it said 'Hope MPs don't confuse wood and trees in phonehacking. Coulson is trees. Wood is media culture. Cops part of the forest.' Bloody obvious I would say. Not a seagull or trawler in sight.
As some of you told me, 'cops are part of the copse' would have been wittier, but wit was not my immediate purpose. That was to point out to Labour MPs that there was a danger that in going all out to get the scalp of Andy Coulson, they lose sight of bigger and more important pictures - namely the nature of the UK media culture; and the role of the police.
To be fair to the MPs, most seemed to get the point when Home Secretary Theresa May addressed the Commons on the issue yesterday. It was not a very convincing performance. She had one line of defence - ministers shouldn't interfere in operational police matters - and stayed right behind it. As a result a lot of questions went unanswered. And questions unanswered in the Commons have a habit of coming back again and again.
It went big on the news yesterday, but appears to be slipping down the agenda again today. I think we can be fairly sure that if this had been happening on Labour's watch, the lead story on the broadcast media this morning would have run as follows ... 'The police officer who has agreed to reopen inquiries into the conduct of the Prime Minister's director of communications during his editorship of the News of the World will face MPs today as the controversy shows no sign of dying down.'
What has been apparent throughout, in the media coverage of this story, is the desire of several newspaper groups for it simply to go away. They should not be surprised, given the zeal with which they chase scandal in other walks of life, that their stance gives rise to people feeling they have a lot to hide from a spotlight is shone too brightly on the way they go about their business.
The other consequence of the Home Secretary's stone-walling is that a lot of questions for the police remain unanswered too. She tried very hard, with a few backbenchers in support, to portray all this as Labour politicking. But when Labour MP Chris Bryant set out to the House the facts of his case - namely that he had been informed he was the victim of criminal activity but the police intended to do nothing about it - he deserved a better answer than the one she gave.
The government (including Lib Dems who would be leading the queue on this one if they let their principles speak louder than the power they hold) have now joined parts of the press in hoping this one just goes away. But it won't. And even if Coulson does end up having to fall on his sword, it shouldn't.
The lack of media coverage is depressing on two counts. It could be assumed that it stems from the fact that phone tapping is endemic in the press at large, rather than just the News of the World. Or it could be the Tory press machine at work again. Neither are terribly encouraging.
I agree with you, Alistair, that this shouldn’t become a mad cap dash to crucify Coulson in itself, but the questions around this are important and need answering. The Home Secretary cannot simply decide to ignore this because it’s above her pay grade, or however she wants to phrase it. It’s the best opportunity Labour have had so far in the life of the Coalition to expose their “new politics” as just the same old.
Not to mention the general hypocrisy; if this had been under Labour, the media and the Tories would have had the whole country baying for blood.
Spot on! It’s crazy how the media, police, and politicians are reacting. This needs to be sorted out and the sooner we have an actual inquiry the better it is.
Phone-hacking scandal is about privacy, not about party politics.
It is a well-known fact that other papers have done the same as NOTW.
Another reason why papers have been silent on this matter is that newspapers prefer to ignore each other´s exclusives.
They also fear retaliation.
Journalists lie and cheat. Nothing new in this.
According to the Guardian phone-hacking inquiry was abandoned to avoid upsetting police.
NOTW reporter was awarded £800,000 because of bullying. The source was – Andy Coulson!
After Mr Coulson was forced to resign from NOTW, William Hague supported him to get a job as a spin chief of the Tories. During the time Mr Coulson was an editor at NOTW, William Hague earned £200,000 a year by writing a column for NOTW…
If illegal surveillance is as widespread as some insiders claim, we are going to need more than piecemeal picking away at this and that incident. I wonder if it would be useful to have a media-wide amnesty, so that all hackers and tappers could come out and confess without risking jail. That will cleanse the Augean stables, and we can start again with new rules to protect privacy from hacking hacks. Is there any merit in this suggestion?
Why did your chums not sort all this out during their years in power after the original gaoling/resignation at the NOW?
Funny thing that: even two jags has found a voice, missing for so many years as Depty PM. He had no appetite for it for all those years. Er, um.
You are a laughing stock!
” Cantonesque ” missed out a “u ” there old boy !
Anyway – instead of as per usual going on very sadly about some sideshow why aren’t you blogging on the AV issue or the Labourleadership battle.
Interesting to note a very credible part of the Labour machine of recent past very wisely predicted that the new Leader won’t be PM…Thanks Bryan Gould your are missed.
We live in a Mediacracy, where media barons like Rupert Murdoch weald too much power even the police are scarred of him. He acts like a Mafia boss.
Ownership of British newspapers, television companies, and radio Stations needs to be radically changed. It SHOULD only be owned by British citizens resident in UK. Ideally by a Trust.
We live in a Mediacracy, where media barons like Rupert Murdoch weald too much power even the police are scarred of him. He acts like a Mafia boss.
Ownership of British newspapers, television companies, and radio Stations needs to be radically changed. It SHOULD only be owned by British citizens resident in UK. Ideally by a Trust.
The “nature of the UK media culture” is dictated to by its ownership, which is so concentrated it endangers our democracy. On Sunday I referred to Will Hutton’s Observer article about the “Berlusconisation of Britain” and his call for a media commission “to examine Britain’s media ownership and competition rules.”
The idea has given birth to a campaign on Twitter called DemocracyFail which is calling for a media commission to do precisely as Will Hutton suggests. The campaign needs followers to get off the ground and be properly debated at the party conferences. Alastair, I hope you will allow my request to you and others on Twitter to follow and DemocracyFail and get the ball rolling. Thanks.
It took years for the phone companies to take action after people were being mugged for their mobile phones – letting the thieves carry on using them.
Same principle – it’s the phone companies who should be getting their acts together to make a sales pitch on better security from hackers. Better than just “change your PIN” – printing details on monthly statements of when voicemail was accessed and the phone number used to access it.
(Obviously highlighting “number withheld” as well!)
None story. Yawn. Move on.
“If this had happened on Labour’s watch.” If it happened at all it did happen on Labour’s watch. Labour Ministers who now say they had doubts about the original police inquiry did nothing about those doubts when they had both the power and the responsibility. Why?
Anyone else catch the PMs terrible Rooney gag last night? Had a NOTW/Andy Coulson feel all over it……crass, selfish and lewd, it made Cameron look like a stupid posh boy trying to win favour and be “in touch”….which could not be further than the truth, of course….. !!!
And the selfish git would have totally ruined the game for all the people listening to him while recording the game to watch when they got home without knowing the score….I’d have lumped him just for that….